Flash Intro - Flip the Envelope Flap

Up to this point in the series, we have been working on the first part of the intro animation and we are up to the point where the envelope flap is ready to open. Now that we have cropped our screenshot of the first frame of the ecard animation in PhotoshopR and imported the image into the Flash Library, we can place the thumbnail onto the stage behind the envelope.

Open your project into FlashR CS4.

Click on the Thumbnail1_1 layer in the Timeline. We want to add the thumbnail image to Frame 91, which is the last frame in our animation so far. We have already added our Thumbnail1_1 layer just under the EnvBack2_1 layer so that it will appear that our thumbnail is inside the envelope. Drag the thumbnail image onto the stage on Frame 91.

As you can see, the screenshot of the ecard is full sized. We will need to shrink the thumbnail to the size of our envelope. With the Free Transform tool and holding down the Shift key on your keyboard, drag one of the corners inward to shrink the image to thumbnail size so that it cannot be seen behind the envelope. You may need to turn off the visibility for the EnvFlap1_1 layer in order to see the thumbnail. You can also use the outline of the Free Transform tool as your guide.

The next design element we will manipulate for this part of the animation is the triangular movie clip (EnvFlap1_1). This will be another motion tween that will flip the triangle's pointed end from bottom to top.

On the EnvFlap1_1 layer in the Layers panel, we already have a Keyframe on Frame 91, which is still the last frame in our animation so far. We will use 10 frames for this motion tween. So we will want to extend the other layers to Frame 101. Right-click on Frame 101 of the EnvBack2_1 layer and Insert a Frame. Repeat this for the Thumbnail1_1 layer.

Now, turn on the visibility for the Thumbnail1_1 and EnvBack2_1 layers. Still on Frame 91, right-click on the EnvFlap1_1 movie clip and choose Create Motion Tween. This will convert the plain frame into the first frame of our motion tween. It should turn from gray to blue. Drag the end of the blue frame to extend the tween span to Frame 101.

With your mouse on Frame 101, use the Free Transform tool to drag the tip of the flap upward while trying to keep the long edge of the triangle in the same position. Test your tween. This may take a couple tries to get the tween to look realistic. Once you have the tween looking good, lock the layer and save your file.